DPW superintendent shares concerns about brush pickup in Massena

MASSENA — The superintendent of Massena’s Department of Public Works told village trustees this week that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to pick up all the brush that’s being put to the curb by residents.

Hassan A. Fayad said the normal procedure is to do the regular refuse collection on the designated day, and then return later to pick up the brush that’s been placed at the curb.

But, he said, it’s becoming unmanageable. As soon as they pick up a pile, there’s another pile back in the same location the following day. In some cases, professional tree service companies are taking down trees and leaving the brush by the roadside, he said.

“There’s such an abundance of brush out there. We’re running into this,” he said. “You pick up a pile, the next day they have the same pile out there again. So it’s hard to keep up with this stuff.”

There’s also the issue of what to do with the brush, which had been taken to the DPW’s former South Main Street site. But that’s being negotiated for sale.

Mr. Fayad said, before his time, the brush piles were burned. Since then, the brush has been taken to the South Main Street site, where a company was hired to come in, chip it up and haul it away.

But, with the potential for that site being sold, Mr. Fayad said, his crews have been trying to chip the brush at curbside.

Mr. Fayad said they borrowed two chippers, one from the town of Massena and one from the town of Norfolk, to try to catch up, but that hasn’t worked.

“There’s so much out there,” he said.

“Some of these piles never end,” Trustee Francis J. Carvel said.

He said somewhere along the line, the village became responsible for picking up all brush, whether it was left by a homeowner or a contractor.

“That wasn’t what it was intended for at the beginning. I don’t know when it became the village’s responsibility to take everybody’s brush. There’s no way to bring it under control,” he said.

Mayor Timmy J. Currier said they needed to come up with an alternative, such as perhaps picking up through the end of May and starting back up again in the fall. During the summer, individuals could continue to take it to a designated location.

He said picking up brush was one of the areas they could look at to determine if it was necessary.